Coming soon: Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta

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When you ask residents the story of Atlanta, Georgia, the balance between reckoning with the city’s past—including its part in the U.S. Civil War and the mid-20th century Civil Rights Movement—and building for a brighter future for the city’s people is evident. Still, in the spirit of the mythical phoenix (prominently featured on the Atlanta seal since 1887) and notable Atlanta civil rights leaders before them, residents continue to rise from the challenges and learn from history to chart a new path forward. This is true even when it comes to climate solutions. 

Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta, premiering globally in mid-November 2022, will feature the stories of nine everyday people, each with their own unique story and role, taking on the climate crisis. While their stories are set in Atlanta, they answer questions that we all have:

  • Beyond emissions, what might motivate us to be part of climate solutions?
  • How do we navigate community challenges and personal challenges—like climate anxiety—on the road to making an impact?
  • What role can history play in inspiring the ways we show up today?
  • How can we unlock our own “real-world superpowers” to be part of the solution? 

Drawdown’s Neighborhood, an episodic climate solutions short documentary series that premiered in spring 2022 with stories from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, focuses on passing the mic to climate heroes who often go unheard. As such, reflecting the diversity of the city and its problem-solvers, the Atlanta series will feature the stories of Black people and people of color working to help the world reach “drawdown”—the point in time when greenhouse gases start to steadily decline—today.

Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta, hosted by Matt Scott, Project Drawdown’s director of storytelling and engagement, will feature climate heroes from Captain Planet Foundation’s Planeteer Alliance, Concrete Jungle, Emory University, the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design at Georgia Institute of Technology, Lifecycle Building Center, Love is Love Cooperative Farm, Power Solutions, Southface’s GoodUse program, and Drawdown Georgia. Beyond their day-to-day roles and job titles, each person brings their story and life experience to show a different side of climate problem-solving—not focused simply on emissions and solutions, but on people who are striving to build a more healthy, more equitable, and more just world but who have often gone unheard.

Do you want to receive Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta in your inbox when it launches in mid-November? Sign up here to receive Drawdown’s Neighborhood updates and, if you’d like, share ideas for how you want to use the series in your classroom or community.

Drawdown's Neighborhood Atlanta climate superheroes

Row 1: Adam Hicks, Tonya Hicks, Robin Okunowo, Demetrius Milling, Eri Saikawa;  Row 2: Steve Place, Kendrick Kelsey, Tylesha Giddings, Blair Beasley

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Discover solutions in action & find your role through the stories of nine climate heroes in Atlanta, Georgia, premiering in November 2022.

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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.

Sneak peek of Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta

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Do you want to discover your role in stopping catastrophic climate change? Drawdown’s Neighborhood, presented by Project Drawdown, is a series of short documentaries featuring the stories of climate solutions heroes, city-by-city.

Join host and Project Drawdown storyteller Matt Scott on a journey to “pass the mic” to climate heroes whose stories often go unheard, and elevate climate action in the process. Drawdown’s Neighborhood showcases the diverse community of people working to help the world reach drawdown, the future point when levels of greenhouse gases start to steadily decline. Each story in the Drawdown’s Neighborhood series serves as a bridge between climate solutions and people like you who are looking to tap into their own superpowers to stop climate change. Hear their voices, learn about their “green careers,” and be inspired about the many ways that you too can utilize your unique gifts and talents to accelerate climate solutions and be part of shaping a better world and just future for all.

Our latest series features the city of Atlanta, known as the heart of the U.S. civil rights movement, which is located on the unceded ancestral land of the Mississippian, Creek and Cherokee Nations. Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta features nine stories from a city with a deep history in leadership, entrepreneurship, and activism. In response to the impacts of climate change, diverse collaborations across Atlanta are building momentum to draw down emissions and create a healthy, just, and vibrant future.

We invite you to watch and share this short documentary series, created in collaboration with adventure filmmaker Erik Douds and Andrea Willingham. In addition, we encourage you to discover solutions and take action using the discussion questions and resources accompanying each film, developed in collaboration with Jothsna Harris of Change Narrative.

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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.

Supercharging national climate plans

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Figure 1 — Shown in the colored circles are 28 climate mitigation solutions with enormous human well-being co-benefits for rural communities in low-and middle-income countries (the gray circles are Project Drawdown solutions that do not generate significant human well-being benefits for under-resourced rural communities).

Country-led prioritization of these climate solutions could be transformational in achieving national-level Paris Agreement commitments as well as the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—especially for goals related to income and work, food, health, education, gender equality, and energy.

Figure 2 — The 12 socioeconomic dimensions of the Donut Economics framework served as a model for the human well-being dimensions used in Drawdown Lift’s Climate-Poverty Connections report, which align with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Our approach

Drawdown Lift did a high-level analysis of the recently updated NDCs of eight African countries (Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda) that are highly vulnerable to climate change (Figure 3) to understand the extent to which their national climate plans 1) recognize broader socio-economic development goals and 2) include climate solutions that contribute to mitigation, adaptation, and human well-being.

First, we explored whether the NDCs acknowledge that climate actions can contribute to poverty alleviation and improve the well-being of rural communities. To identify the extent of countries’ inclusion of development objectives in their NDCs, we looked for keywords focusing on poverty, vulnerability, rural livelihoods, rural communities, and well-being.

Next, we examined whether climate solutions with clear human well-being benefits were included in the NDCs (refer to Figure 1). In order to compare similar solutions mentioned in the NDCs, we reassigned a consistent name to such solutions. For example, strategies such as ‘improving charcoal production,’ ‘improving cooking efficiency,’ and ‘improved cookstoves’ were all considered as Clean Cooking—the relevant Project Drawdown solution. Meanwhile, within a given NDC, we combined similar solutions. For example, both ‘forest protection and health enhancement’ and ‘reforestation and restoration’ in Ethiopia’s NDC were considered Forest Protection.

We then identified opportunities to add or refine climate actions—drawing from solutions that were included in the Climate-Poverty Connections report but that were largely omitted from the NDCs—in future NDC iterations that would both contribute to climate goals (for mitigation and adaptation) and meet development objectives.

Figure 3 — The eight countries included in Project Drawdown’s pilot analysis have recently updated their NDCs and also experience high climate vulnerability, while representing different socioeconomic, geographic, and ecological regions in Africa. Data sources include the World Bank (population, rural population, extreme poverty, and rural access to electricity) and ND-GAIN (climate vulnerability).

 

Hover or tap countries for socio-economic metrics

Ethiopia

115M
Population
80%
Rural
31%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
40%
Rural population with access to electricity
Very High
Climate vulnerability

Senegal

17M
Population
51%
Rural
41%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
48%
Rural population with access to electricity
High
Climate vulnerability

Rwanda

13M
Population
77%
Rural
56%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
38%
Rural population with access to electricity
High
Climate vulnerability

Tanzania

61M
Population
64%
Rural
45%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
22%
Rural population with access to electricity
High
Climate vulnerability

Malawi

19M
Population
82%
Rural
71%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
7%
Rural population with access to electricity
Very High
Climate vulnerability

Uganda

47M
Population
74%
Rural
42%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
33%
Rural population with access to electricity
Very High
Climate vulnerability

Congo

5.6M
Population
32%
Rural
40%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
15%
Rural population with access to electricity
Very High
Climate vulnerability

Niger

25M
Population
83%
Rural
51%
Living in
Extreme Poverty
14%
Rural population with access to electricity
Very Very High
Climate vulnerability

Shading represents climate vulnerability:

High
Very High
Very Very High

Opportunity #1: Enhance the recognition of human well-being dimensions in NDC climate strategies

The good news? Climate strategies outlined in the eight NDCs broadly align with boosting high-level human well-being. All countries’ NDCs acknowledge poverty as a major issue, and most of the NDCs explicitly emphasize the need for climate strategies to contribute to improving human well-being (Figure 4). For example, Congo’s NDC states that “measures taken to address climate change should be closely coordinated with social and economic development in order to avoid adverse impacts,” while Rwanda’s NDC states that “climate solutions should also address key issues such as poverty.”

Further, all countries’ NDCs acknowledge the importance of gender mainstreaming, following the general trend of improvement from original NDCs, which largely omitted gender considerations. Of particular note, Uganda’s NDC also highlights the importance of climate education as a tool for improving climate resilience—a consideration that is unfortunately still lacking in most NDCs globally.

Figure 4 — Alignment between climate and human well-being strategies for the eight countries included in Drawdown Lift’s analysis.

Do countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions…

Mention people living in poverty?

 

Mention the enhanced vulnerability of people living in extreme poverty?

 

Emphasize that climate solutions should also address poverty and improve human well-being?

 

List human well-being co-benefits of climate mitigation solutions?

 
Yes
No

Although gender inclusion, rural populations’ well-being, and poverty alleviation were common features of the NDCs, only three countries (Congo, Malawi, and Rwanda; see Figure 4) explicitly called out how the climate solutions included in the NDCs can benefit one or more of the 12 dimensions of human well-being (Figure 2). For example, Congo’s NDC noted that Forest Protection and Tropical Forest Restoration climate solutions also benefit several SDGs, such as SDG 1 (poverty), SDG 2 (food), SDG 5 (gender), and SDG 8 (work). However, in some cases the NDCs that listed specific well-being co-benefits of climate strategies could have been more comprehensive in enumerating the co-benefits. For example, while Rwanda included food, income and work, and energy well-being co-benefits for its ‘solar pumps’ climate strategy (referred to as Farm Irrigation Efficiency in Project Drawdown’s report), the country could have also recognized that solar pumps can improve access to clean water. 

Opportunity #2: Emphasize climate solutions that boost human well-being

Clean Cooking, Biogas for Cooking, Distributed Solar Photovoltaics, Sustainable Intensification for Smallholders, Microgrids, Forest Protection, and Tropical Forest Restoration were the most frequently cited climate strategies that also contribute to the human well-being of rural populations in the eight NDCs (Figure 5). Other frequently included climate strategies with clear human well-being benefits were Farm Irrigation Efficiency, Conservation Agriculture, Nutrient Management, and Improved Rice Production.

In addition, Congo and Senegal—two out of the three coastal countries in the analysis—included powerful solutions like Coastal Wetland Protection and mangrove-focused Coastal Wetland Restoration in their NDCs. Meanwhile, Peatland Protection and Rewetting is applicable only to Congo, which included that solution as part of Forest Protection.

Generally speaking, we found that the inclusion of 14 of the climate solutions identified in the Climate-Poverty Connections report in the majority of the NDCs analyzed indicates significant potential for the national climate plans—if funded and implemented—to contribute to advancing human well-being.

Figure 5 — The eight NDCs examined in this analysis frequently included 14 climate solutions with substantial human well-being co-benefits (or that were specifically relevant for a given country). The countries that included such solutions are highlighted in black, and the solutions mentioned here were included either as part of mitigation strategies, adaptation strategies, or—for some countries—as both mitigation and adaptation strategies.

However, several of the impactful climate solutions identified in the Climate-Poverty Connections report that feature well-documented co-benefits for income and work, food security, water and sanitation, and health that are relevant to these eight countries—such as Small Hydropower, Micro Wind Turbines, Geothermal Power, Indigenous Peoples’ Forest Tenure, Grassland Protection, Reduced Food Waste, Abandoned Farmland Restoration, Multistrata Agroforestry, Silvopasture, Regenerative Annual Cropping, Tree Intercropping, and Family Planning and Education—were featured sparingly in the NDCs (see Figure 6; two of the 28 solutions, Temperate Forest Restoration and System of Rice Intensification, are not applicable in the eight countries). Featuring more of these double-duty climate solutions in the NDCs would result in stronger synergies for simultaneously meeting both climate and development goals in the eight countries. 

In terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and potential well-being benefits, the biggest available opportunity is for the countries to add Reduced Food Waste (which includes post-harvest food loss) (Figure 6) to their NDCs. Food waste accounts for 8-10 percent of global annual GHG emissions. In Africa, unintentional post-harvest food loss due to inadequate storage and poor food distribution networks stands at 14 percent. Including Reduced Food Waste as a climate strategy will not only help reduce emissions but will also contribute to strengthening food security (and improving health) in the eight countries.

Family Planning and Education generates substantial human well-being benefits for health, education, income and work, food, and gender equality for individuals and families. In addition, one long-term outcome of rights-based voluntary family planning and education—slower population growth—translates to lower emissions over time at a global level (Figure 6).

Figure 6 — The eight NDCs examined in Project Drawdown’s analysis frequently omitted 12 climate solutions with notable human well-being co-benefits. The countries that included these solutions are highlighted in black. These solutions were included either as part of mitigation strategies, adaptation strategies, or—for some countries—as both mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Opportunity #3: Recognize the mitigation potential of agriculture and agroforestry climate solutions 

Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) climate actions were primarily included as adaptation strategies in the eight NDCs (Figure 5). Yet several of these currently available solutions such as Nutrient Management, Farm Irrigation Efficiency, Silvopasture, and Coastal Wetland Protection are also powerful mitigation solutions. As such, including them as mitigation-adaptation dual solutions can be advantageous to meet Paris Agreement goals. Climate solutions focused on either improving agriculture and agroforestry or protecting and restoring ecosystems contribute directly to boosting food, income and work, and water and sanitation, while also contributing indirectly to improving human well-being dimensions around health, gender equality, education, energy, networks, and housing.

Although Africa contributes a scant three percent to global emissions, AFOLU is a large contributor to GHG emissions from the continent. Acknowledging the mitigation potential of AFOLU solutions could make achieving the Paris Agreement goals more manageable and cost-effective in comparison to expensive and futuristic solutions.

Opportunity #4: Prioritize renewables for climate, energy, and human well-being goals

All of the eight NDCs include renewable energy solutions such as Distributed Solar Photovoltaics and Microgrids (Figure 5), highlighting deliberate efforts to use climate actions to address the widespread energy poverty in these countries. However, additional climate solutions such as Geothermal Power, Small Hydropower, and Micro Wind Turbines (Figure 6) were largely omitted from the NDCs. While Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda all have high geothermal potential, only Tanzania included Geothermal Power as a potential climate solution in its NDC.

Decentralized renewable energy solutions have reached parity with—or are even cheaper than—large-grid electricity. Addressing multidimensional energy poverty by serving rural communities through a wide variety of renewably-powered decentralized micro-grids or off-grid electricity would be impactful from both a climate and human well-being perspective.

The path forward: Opportunities to increase synergies between climate actions and development goals in NDCs

Our pilot analysis reveals several opportunities in the NDCs examined here to enhance synergies between climate and development goals. As countries revise their NDCs in the years ahead (and tap into available resources from the NDC Partnership and others to advance their NDCs), they can further highlight well-being benefits as part of their climate actions; intentionally incorporate the powerful suite of double-duty solutions identified in the Climate-Poverty Connections report; recognize AFOLU solutions as dual mitigation and adaptation solutions; prioritize essential human rights; and diversify renewable energy solutions in rural areas. These actions could better support rural communities in African countries that are most vulnerable to climate change and advance much-needed socioeconomic development and climate adaptation priorities while also charting low-carbon pathways to development.

People in colorful clothing standing under trees near a solar panel
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Climate solutions and efforts to improve the well-being of people experiencing extreme poverty can—and must—be complementary. How can African countries use their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to chart a path forward that not only achieves low-carbon development and builds climate change resilience but also helps lift people out of extreme poverty?

Project Drawdown’s landmark 2022 Climate-Poverty Connections report provides compelling evidence that 28 climate solutions (Figure 1) can simultaneously generate substantial human well-being benefits (Figure 2) for rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia; 26 of these 28 solutions are applicable for the countries in this analysis.

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Project Drawdown launches world-class science team

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The four, James Gerber, Ph.D.; Kate Marvel, Ph.D.; Amanda D. Smith, Ph.D.; and Paul West, Ph.D., will join Project Drawdown over the next four months. The team members will conduct frontline research on critical topics related to climate solutions, helping Project Drawdown build roadmaps for their implementation. They also will serve as public-facing subject matter experts on climate solutions, providing thought leadership to inform science-based decisions by policymakers, investors, philanthropists, corporate leaders, and others around the world.

“Project Drawdown is at an important inflection point as the world gains momentum for halting climate change—shifting from identifying and characterizing climate solutions to building an action plan for deploying them,” said Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley, Ph.D. “This team will be at the forefront of our work to home in on a clear strategy for stopping climate change.”

Meet the team: 

James Gerber, Ph.D., is a data scientist with expertise on agriculture’s impact on Earth’s ecosystems, food security, and the interrelation of climate and food security.  Lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with a focus on development pathways, he comes to Project Drawdown from the University of Minnesota.  

Kate Marvel, Ph.D., is a climate scientist and writer who has published extensively in both academic press and mainstream media. A chapter lead on the Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment, she holds a doctoral degree in theoretical physics from Cambridge University. Previous positions include the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Stanford University.

Amanda D. Smith, Ph.D., is a researcher and analyst with expertise in building science and energy systems modeling. Her professional career includes academic, national laboratory, and industry positions. Most recently, she served as senior energy analyst at SOCOTEC USA. She received her doctorate from Mississippi State University.

Paul West, Ph.D., is an ecologist researching solutions on managing lands and waters to improve food security, climate, nature, and people’s lives. More broadly, he is driven by conducting cutting-edge science and working with others to effect change on the ground. He previously worked at The Nature Conservancy and the University of Minnesota. He received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin.  

Project Drawdown will be adding to the team in the future across a wide range of disciplines to provide deep and diverse insights into climate solutions.

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Four world-class researchers are joining Project Drawdown as inaugural members of our new science team. Their mission: to advance the science of how to effectively implement climate solutions; to advance the public discourse on climate solutions; and to collaborate with leading companies, funders, and organizations to accelerate action to quickly, safely, and equitably halt climate change.

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Discover your inner climate superhero

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Participants on stage

Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta interviewees Demetrius Milling, Blair Beasley, Robin Okunowo, Tonya Hicks, Adam Hicks, and Tylesha Giddings pose together at the launch celebration for the series.

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Drawdown’s Neighborhood, presented by Project Drawdown, is a series of short documentaries featuring the stories of climate solutions heroes, city by city. We are extremely excited to share with you that the series’ second edition—Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta—is now available online!

We invite you to join host and Project Drawdown director of storytelling and engagement Matt Scott on a journey to “pass the mic” to nine climate heroes whose stories often go unheard, and elevate climate action—and stories about careers, race, gender, sexuality, mental health, personal and community resilience, family, and more—in the process.

The series’ second round of documentary shorts showcases the Atlanta, Georgia, which played a pivotal role in the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and today maintains a strong global reputation for social activism, cultural diversity, and economic innovation. In its climate action plan, the City of Atlanta has recognized the need for change, acknowledging “the risk that climate change poses” and asserting that “local action is needed to reduce the City of Atlanta’s contribution to the problem of climate change and adapt to its current and future effects.” In response to the impacts of climate change, people from all over the city are mobilizing to fuel a green future – leveraging Atlanta’s innovative spirit and rich tradition of civic engagement to achieve much-needed change.

This series showcases the diverse “Neighborhood” of people working in Atlanta and surrounding communities to help the world reach drawdown, the future point when levels of greenhouse gases start to steadily decline. Each story serves as a bridge between climate solutions and people like you looking to tap into their own superpowers to stop climate change.  

The Drawdown’s Neighborhood short documentaries touch on a range of themes used to inspire action. Themes include pathways to climate careers; collaboration across silos, including geographies, sectors, and ideologies; diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice; hope and opportunity; individual action paired with systems change; and personal and community resilience. The nine stories from Atlanta center the voices of women, Black people, people of color, immigrants, and others who are often not represented in the climate dialogue and yet are commonly most immediately and severely vulnerable to the impacts of climate catastrophe.

You’ll find your superpower with Demetrius Milling, whose work with the Love is Love Cooperative Farm propels a vision for a just, healthy, and sustainable world powered by local community collaboration—a model to be replicated as we build the future.

You’ll turn the page and embrace change with Adam Hicks, who simultaneously fights food insecurity and climate change by diverting food waste from farms to help the local community access fresh fruits and vegetables—helping to draw down climate emissions while addressing hunger through millions of servings of fruits and vegetables made accessible via donations to local food banks and shelters.

You’ll ask questions and find answers with Blair Beasley, who supports research for Drawdown Georgia, a first-of-its-kind, state-centered initiative to crowd-solve for climate change by focusing on five high-impact climate solutions areas of electricity, transportation, buildings and materials, food and agriculture, and land sinks to drastically cut carbon emissions.

 The series also includes:

  • Eri Saikawa, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at Emory University 
  • Kendrick Kelsey, Reuse Center Associate at the Lifecycle Building Center
  • Robin Okunowo, Program Coordinator with Captain Planet Foundation’s Planeteer Alliance
  • Steve Place, Horticulturist II with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design
  • Tonya Hicks, President and CEO of Power Solutions Inc.
  • Tylesha Giddings, Technical Project Manager at Southface Institute

Feeling inspired? To unleash your inner climate superhero, visit Drawdown’s Neighborhood to discover solutions and take action today. 

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Drawdown Lift: The year in review

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Farmers at work in Nawalparasi, Nepal.

Farmers at work in Nawalparasi, Nepal.

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2022 was a busy year for Drawdown Lift, which focuses on promoting climate solutions that generate multiple benefits for poverty alleviation. From publishing a first-of-its-kind report to meeting with officials and civil society leaders and presenting at COP27, Drawdown Lift bridged important gaps between the climate and sustainable development fields. Here are the highlights.

In March, the Drawdown Lift team published a landmark report, Climate–Poverty Connections: Opportunities for synergistic solutions at the intersection of planetary and human well-being. The report provides concrete evidence of how climate change solutions can contribute to alleviating multiple dimensions of poverty in rural communities in Africa and South Asia. The report highlights 28 climate solutions that leaders and practitioners in low- and middle-income countries can prioritize as they address climate impacts, advance sustainable development, and pursue renewable energy pathways.

The report was presented to a wide range of climate experts and climate-focused development professionals representing climate finance institutions, multilateral and bilateral development  institutions, philanthropies, impact investors, NGOs, and more. Officials, civil society leaders, and climate experts across the world lauded the usefulness and timeliness of the report. “The findings outlined in the report are really important to our work,” remarked Mikko Ollikainen, head of the UNFCCC’s Adaptation Fund, “as they delineate the interconnections between climate solutions, the improvements of livelihoods, and other benefits, and therefore advance the well-being of the communities that we serve.”

Similarly, Moffatt Ngugi, natural resources officer with USAID/Mozambique and Lift Advisory Council member, commented that the report contains “integrated work that we all need to know about.” Monica Jain, lead evaluation specialist for the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and former Lift Advisory Council member, noted that “this is a massive evidence review highlighting the co-benefits of climate mitigation solutions and human well-being. It can guide policymakers, funders, and researchers for future investments.” 

Following the report’s publication, the Drawdown Lift team embarked on a fast-paced (mostly virtual) tour promoting the findings and recommendations. Throughout the year, the team had more than 60 public and media engagements and wrote 20 articles and op-eds, in addition to producing a high-level analysis of Nationally Determined Contributions in eight African countries. Interviews and quotes from the team appeared in outlets such as Al Jazeera, Scientific American, The Revelator, The Drop, Atmos Magazine, and Tree Speech podcast, among others. Additionally, Drawdown Lift summarized the report in a short video that was screened during several presentations for climate professionals. 

The team also worked to ensure the results of Lift’s work are actionable for climate-focused public and private decision-makers. Drawdown Lift staff held approximately 40 meetings with external stakeholders, including the Adaptation Fund, Global Environment Facility, World Bank, USAID, Save the Children, the Gates Foundation, Stewart Investors, International Gender Champions, and many more. Through meetings and presentations, we continue to raise awareness for climate solutions that can help address the world’s climate and poverty crises simultaneously. 

These efforts culminated at COP27, where program staff and some Lift Advisory Council members presented at side events and met with key stakeholders, including ministry officials from Pakistan, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Uganda, and Tanzania as well as representatives from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the International Water Management Institute, and Arizona State University. Drawdown Lift director Kristen P. Patterson spoke on a panel hosted by the World Resources Institute titled “Fast-Action Mitigation to Slow Warming in this Decisive Decade.” The Lift team also organized a panel discussion at the Locally Led Adaptation pavilion. That event, “Triple impact: Prioritizing climate solutions that advance adaptation, mitigation, and poverty alleviation,” featured speakers from BRAC, One Acre Fund, Save the Children, and USAID.

This year, Drawdown Lift also welcomed a new member of the team, Daniel Jasper, to serve as a policy advisor, and added new members to its Advisory Council: Rajib Ghosal (regional senior technical advisor, climate change, Save the Children, Asia-Pacific) and Cheikh Mbacké Faye (director, African Population and Health Research Center, West Africa Regional Office).

As we look ahead to 2023, our ultimate objective remains clear—to convince the world that we don’t have to choose between addressing climate change and alleviating poverty. As Patterson says, “We must prioritize climate solutions that generate substantial benefits for well-being to boost equity and usher in prosperity for populations least responsible for the climate crisis in Africa and South Asia.” In the year ahead, we plan to host a number of high-level webinars, private convenings, and public events and will continue to share additional research on climate solutions that also alleviate poverty. We invite you to stay tuned for these events, articles, and much more via the Project Drawdown newsletter.

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Drawdown Labs: The year in review

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In 2022, Drawdown Labs called for much more expansive private sector climate action—raising the bar for corporate climate leadership, welcoming more people in to help bring about solutions, and helping shift more money toward climate action.

As Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley and Drawdown Labs director Jamie Alexander wrote in CNN Opinion this year:

Bringing climate solutions into the world at scale requires that every part of the economy bring its superpower to bear: genuine business leadership moving markets, investors and philanthropists shifting capital, workers building solar panels and wind turbines, and cities and states making climate solutions a reality in the places we live and work. And all of this will be accelerated by community leaders, employees and activists keeping the pressure up and demanding accountability.

Galvanizing bold climate action among these powerful global actors—and doing what we can to hold them accountable to their commitments—remains our mission at Drawdown Labs since we launched this experiment three years ago. This past year we were proud to make big moves toward this goal. Read on for highlights from 2022 and a sneak peek at our plans for the year ahead. 

We grew our community and expanded our reach:

  • We welcomed new businesses Lyft, Etsy, and Askov Finlayson into the Drawdown Labs Business Consortium, expanding the base of businesses with ambition to align with the Drawdown-Aligned Business standard.
  • We created a new type of partnership, welcoming five organizations as implementation partners to help our business network reach the standards we’ve set out in the Drawdown-Aligned Business Framework: Carbon Collective, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, Evergreen Action, Rewiring America, and Seneca Solar.
  • We reached a new audience, business school students at the University of Colorado–Boulder, with a new course on the Drawdown-Aligned Business Framework.
  • We learned from the expertise of our two senior fellows, Chidi Oti Obihara and Sarah Frias-Torres, who spent the year with us doing important research on how Project Drawdown’s climate solutions can help shift the flow of capital to climate solutions.

We used our platform to hold leaders accountable and call for faster action:

  • Drawdown Labs director Jamie Alexander called on President Biden on Al Jazeera to declare a climate emergency, unlocking more resources to help scale climate solutions. 
  • We played a key role in mobilizing business support for what became the Inflation Reduction Act, including by placing a full-page ad in the New York Times—seen by over 4 million readers—reminding the world that we have the solutions to the climate crisis and that leading businesses support strong federal climate policy. 
  • In a fiery discussion between Jason Jacobs and Jamie Alexander on the My Climate Journey podcast, we helped open up a new conversation about some of the tensions and double standards that exist in the climate solutions space, igniting important discussions and helping all of us see ourselves on the same team.
  • We held our business partners to a high standard, and publicly called on them to step up when they fail to meet our expectations. 

We leveled up corporate climate leadership to a new Drawdown-Aligned standard:

  • We gathered an all-star lineup of climate experts and advocates in a webinar to press business leaders on robust climate policy advocacy. To accelerate work in another key area of leverage, investments and finance, we also organized two webinars on decarbonizing corporate cash and greening 401(k)s to show that cash is not climate neutral.
  • Senior associate Julian Kraus-Polk wrote for GreenBiz that companies must consider their financed emissions if they are to help curb the climate crisis.
  • Understanding that each company and industry has a “climate superpower,” we brought together a group of experts to crosswalk the Drawdown-Aligned Business Framework with the gaming industry, utilizing its extensive reach to ​​explore how it can go beyond operational “net zero” and level up climate impact. 
  • Recognizing the world’s need to rapidly shift capital away from carbon-intensive activities and toward climate solutions, we worked to expand upon a new work stream focused on the role of finance. We brought on two senior fellows to kick-start this work by researching key climate finance and philanthropic strategies. And we laid the groundwork for a 2023 launch of a new network of investors and philanthropists who will work with us to better align funding decisions with strategic climate solutions.

We equipped employees with tools and inspiration to take climate action at work:

  • We are proud to be doubling down on our call to action: Every job is a climate job. To help bring this idea to life, this year we dug deeper into what that means and how we can help bring that rallying cry to life.
  • We released Job Function Action Guides for seven common corporate job functions, highlighting the climate actions that individuals in these roles can implement at work. 
  • We connected thousands of employees with the action guides via social media, newsletters, presentations, and podcasts; the action guides are currently being used at companies across tech, manufacturing, food, and other industries.  
  • We partnered with Terra.do to provide a deeper insight into what it means to apply a climate lens to your current role.
  • Jamie was a guest on the A Matter of Degrees podcast to discuss how individuals can take climate action at work.
  • Senior associate Aiyana Bodi discussed the creation of the action guides for Work on Climate.    
  • We told employee stories, from those deeply engaging their customers and communities, to employees working beyond their job description—all in the pursuit of climate action.
  • And so much more on our YouTube channel.

Stay tuned to our YouTube channel and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of this page to stay in the loop on the work we have in store in 2023.

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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.

Drawdown Science profile: Paul West

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Paul West
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This article is the first in a series introducing the new members of Project Drawdown’s science team.

Paul West joined Drawdown Science as senior scientist, ecosystems & agriculture, in September 2022 after working part-time with Project Drawdown as director of special projects since January 2021. An applied ecologist, he focuses on identifying and amplifying co-benefits of climate solutions for conserving biodiversity, sustainably producing food, and enhancing the overall health of people and our planet.

Before coming to Project Drawdown, Paul held leadership positions at the University of Minnesota and The Nature Conservancy. The Web of Science has named him one of the world’s most influential ecology and environmental researchers. 

In this interview, Paul shares his thoughts on the intersection of climate and food security, Mr. Rogers vs. Bill Nye The Science Guy, fresh pears, and more. 

Q: When people ask you what you do with Project Drawdown, what do you tell them?

A: I’m helping find solutions to reduce our impact on climate and create a more just world. I bring scientific rigor to the conversation, assess how climate solutions also benefit people and nature, and work with others to effect change on the ground. 

Q: Why did you choose to join the Drawdown Science team?

A: I like to be on the frontier of new science and I’m all about solutions. I’m also very practical. So Project Drawdown is a great fit for me. My work will focus on solutions that bring together my expertise and passion for reducing climate change, improving food security, and protecting nature. How do we meet all three goals? Who benefits and what are the trade-offs? Where are the hot spots that can help or hinder progress? What’s the path and who can help us reach the destination quickest? 

Q: Can you recall a childhood experience that relates to the work you’re doing today?

A: When I was 8 or 9, we had a family friend who was passionate about hunting and fishing and hiking and such. He took me to a few places where there was a remnant prairie and talked to me about what most of that part of Illinois used to look like. It stuck with me just how much our landscape has changed. 

Q: What’s your favorite Drawdown Solution, and why?

A: One is protection of tropical forests, because they store a whole bunch of carbon, are biodiversity hotspots, and are important areas for Indigenous peoples. Another is eliminating food waste, because it’s something everyone sees as a good idea. It’s something we’re able to do as individuals and something that has immediate impact and that we have influence over in our everyday lives.

Q: What was the subject of your Ph.D. dissertation? 

A: I came up with new ways of quantifying how land use change, mainly from agricultural expansion and management, affects water availability and quality, habitat, and climate. 

Q: What superpowers do you bring to this job?

A: Over time I’ve become more of a high-end generalist as compared to extremely good at a few things. That, in combination with being a systems thinker and curious, is a big one. I’m good at cutting through all the noise to find answers and doable actions. And I work well with others. Even though I’m a science guy, I’m more like Mr. Rogers than someone flashy like Bill Nye.

Q: What gives you hope?

A: There are so many more people, especially young people, these days who are very interested in climate change and are taking action or demanding action by others. Also, it gives me hope that we have most of the tools that are needed to solve most of the problems.

Q: What is the most awesome thing you’ve encountered so far today?

For breakfast I had a pear and some oatmeal, and there’s something about pears that I love. When I was a kid we had them out of tin and I didn’t like them. This time of year I love to have a fresh pear.

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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.

Drawdown Stories: The year in review

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Two people on stage in front of audience

Matt Scott, Project Drawdown’s director of storytelling and engagement, speaks about Drawdown Stories with Emmy Award-winning journalist, former White House correspondent, and Planet Forward founder Frank Sesno.

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In 2022, Drawdown Stories welcomed the world into a journey to “pass the mic” to the climate heroes who often go unheard and, in the process, invite people everywhere to tap into their unique “superpowers” to play a role in helping the world reach drawdown.

Early in the year, I took the stage at the 2022 Planet Forward Summit, sponsored by organizations including National Geographic, Discovery, Comcast, Adobe, and Patagonia, to underscore why accelerating new, inclusive climate conversations isn’t only nice, but necessary.

“I want to ask you to consider a question: As you navigate crisis, as you seek solutions, who and what are the voices that often aren’t represented in those conversations? Literally, look around you. Consider who is sitting next to you. If you’re on the livestream, consider who’s in the rooms with you or who you work with. What voices are represented, and who’s missing from those conversations?

“Unfortunately, studies have shown that those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the climate crisis – Black communities, Indigenous communities, communities of color, low-income communities – are also often not represented in climate conversations or in rooms like this, and that’s a huge problem. In the spirit of navigating crisis and seeking solutions, we’re not taking that sitting down; we’re doing something about it and that’s what passing the mic is all about.”

Reaching drawdown as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible requires that all communities – particularly those least represented – have a seat at the table and have a part in solutions. Recognizing the task at hand, Drawdown Stories serves to spread awareness, shape attitudes, and spark action for the broader climate community, including educators and their students, as well as other future climate leaders, through storytelling and engagement.

This year, we made progress in a number of ways.

We centered the voices that often go unheard in the popular climate solutions dialogue.

In February 2022, at the start of Black History Month, Drawdown Stories hosted a virtual launch event for our program’s guiding principle of “Climate Solutions in Color” at the annual Great Northern Festival. We were joined by Clara Kitongo, program manager at the One Tree Per Child Program at Tree Pittsburgh; Ben Passer, senior program officer, Midwest climate and energy, at McKnight Foundation; Jacqui Patterson, founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership and former senior director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program; and Jothsna Harris, founder of Change Narrative.

Hosted live for hundreds in real time, the conversation underscored the need to welcome underrepresented voices in climate, not only to counteract historic and present disparities, but to welcome everyday “superpowers” of those who have often been left out of the conversation.

We introduced the world to drawdown-aligned climate careers and solutions in action.

Drawdown Labs highlights how every job can be a climate job and, through the work of Drawdown Stories in 2022, we showcased a diverse range of people in careers helping the world reach drawdown. The 20 change makers – in 20 unique roles showcasing the diversity of climate careers:

  • Paige Anderson, project manager at the City of Pittsburgh, Department of Mobility and Infrastructure
  • Blair Beasley, director of climate strategies at the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, working to support Drawdown Georgia
  • Erica Cochran Hameen, PhD, architectural designer, professor, researcher, and director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture
  • Alexis Cromer, food operations director at 412 Food Rescue
  • Tylesha Giddings, technical project manager at Southface
  • Adam Hicks, field manager at Concrete Jungle
  • Tonya Hicks, founder and CEO of Power Solutions, and Founder of Women Do Everything
  • Kendrick Kelsey, Reuse Center associate at Lifecycle Building Center
  • Clara Kitongo, program coordinator, One Tree Per Child, at Tree Pittsburgh
  • Angie Martinez, senior right-of-way manager at the City of Pittsburgh, Department of Mobility and Infrastructure
  • Demetrius Milling, worker-owner at Love is Love Cooperative Farm
  • Veni Mittal, (former) energy audits associate at Rebuilding Together Pittsburgh / community service chair at the Green Building Alliance
  • Tom Mulholland, senior project manager at Grounded Strategies
  • Robin Okunowo, program coordinator at Captain Planet Foundation's Planeteer Alliance
  • Sarah Olexsak, manager of transportation electrification at Duquesne Light Company
  • Steve Place, horticulturist at the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design
  • Eri Saikawa, associate professor, Winship distinguished research professor of environmental sciences, and director of Emory Talks Climate at Emory University
  • Shawn Taylor, crew leader at Landforce 
  • Richard Tumushime, head electrician at Energy Independent Solutions
  • Brandon Walton, fleet manager with the City of Pittsburgh, Office of Management and Budget

We equipped communities with stories and resources to spread awareness, shape attitudes, and spark action.

While The Great Northern Festival was the official launch of Drawdown Stories’ work to “pass the mic,” it was later in the spring that we launched Drawdown’s Neighborhood, a climate solutions short documentary series featuring the stories of climate solutions heroes, city by city. The series began with stories from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and, in the fall, added stories from Atlanta, Georgia – centering stories of BIPOC, women, youth, and immigrant climate leaders.

The Drawdown’s Neighborhood series is only beginning to achieve the impact it set out to have. To date, people from community organizations and other institutions in 30+ states have shared ways they plan to collectively engage more than 1 million people with Drawdown’s Neighborhood. Each series features learning and action resources, including offerings from ChangeX, Climate Generation, Ecochallenge.org, Solutions Journalism Network, and SubjectToClimate, as well as Project Drawdown resources like the Drawdown Labs Job Function Action Guides, Climate Solutions 101, and the Drawdown Solutions Library.

We collaborated with platforms and communities alike to begin to “pass the mic.”

This year, Drawdown Stories also contributed to a number of annual conferences and events hosted by Climate Generation, The Great Northern Festival, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the New England Aquarium, and Planet Forward. These collaborations resulted in tremendous reach, including downloads as part of National Geographic’s Overheard Podcast episode “The Greening of Pittsburgh” and more than 50,000 views hosting a show as part of Pinterest TV’s Climate Week show, “Real-World Climate Superheroes.”

We also shared Drawdown Stories content and resources directly – through talks and workshops – with communities of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability Education (AASHE); California State Universities; Chabot College; Children’s Climate Championship; Club of Lisbon; the Design for Empathy Podcast; The George Washington University: Grand Valley State University: the HOPE, ACT, THRIVE podcast: Mass Audubon: the Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference: Pittsburgh Youth for Climate Action (hosted by Communitopia): SEI: Stanford University: The University of Maryland: and more.

Locally, with the generous support of 7 Stages Theatre and Drawdown Georgia, we also hosted the very first of many Drawdown’s Neighborhood community launch events. This launch, for Drawdown’s Neighborhood: Atlanta, welcomed 150 community members including public and private sector leaders, climate professionals, environmental justice advocates, educators, faith-based organizers, and everyday climate heroes from a wide range of locally and nationally recognized institutions. 

We prepared to go even further in 2023.

In the second half of 2022, Drawdown Stories welcomed a new storytelling coordinator and engagement coordinator, bolstering the impact of our work community by community. In addition to preparing to feature and share more stories, we began to explore exciting partnerships and editorial collaborations that will bear fruit in 2023.

As we continue to build Drawdown Stories, we are excited for the impact of our work to blossom – providing people with a better understanding of the role climate solutions can play in their local communities and the science underlying those solutions; providing people with opportunities for deeper exploration and dialogue related to climate change and climate solutions; and providing people with relatable, relevant, inclusive stories and resources that enable them to help the world reach drawdown.

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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.

Drawdown’s Neighborhood video series shares stories from San Francisco Bay Area climate heroes

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An image of the Bay Bridge with Drawdown's Neighborhood logo in the foreground
An image of the Golden Gate Bridge with Drawdown's Neighborhood logo in the foreground
An image of Lake Merritt with Drawdown's Neighborhood logo in the foreground
An image of Oakland with Drawdown's Neighborhood logo in the foreground
An image of redwood trees with Drawdown's Neighborhood logo in the foreground

Credits

Drawdown’s Neighborhood is produced by the Drawdown Stories team in collaboration with adventure filmmakers Erik Douds and Andrea Willow. We encourage you to discover solutions and characteristics of your climate story using the discussion questions and resources accompanying each film, developed in collaboration with Jothsna Harris of Change Narrative.

Drawdown's Neighborhood is part of Project Drawdown's broader storytelling initiative, Drawdown Stories, which works to "pass the mic" to climate heroes who often go unheard. Past Drawdown's Neighborhood series have featured changemakers in the Tri-State Area of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, New Orleans, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and the Minnesota Twin Cities.

A graphic showing the San Francisco Bay Area with the logo for Drawdown's Neighborhood in the foreground
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Drawdown’s Neighborhood, presented by Project Drawdown, is a series of short documentaries featuring the stories of climate solutions heroes, city by city across America. For its sixth edition, the series heads to the West Coast in Drawdown’s Neighborhood: San Francisco Bay Area. 

The first episode launches today, with each of the remaining six episodes dropping every weekday from now until Friday, August 30. Be sure to to subscribe to our YouTube channel here to be alerted when each episode drops. 

The San Francisco Bay Area – home to nine counties, more than 100 cities and towns, and over 7 million people – exemplifies climate leadership, environmental justice, and innovative renewable technologies. It is a model for how cities, residents, organizations, and businesses can work together to respond to the intensifying regional impacts of climate change, from heat waves and wildfires to flooding and rising sea levels. As a global hub of diversity, culture, and technology, the Bay Area has enormous economic, social, and political power to address climate change in ways that ripple across sectors and the world.  The land known as the Bay Area is the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Native homelands of the Muwekma Ohlone, Chochenyo, Karkin, Ramaytush, Yokuts, Miwok, Southern Pomo, Kashaya, Patwin, and Mishewal Wappo.

Drawdown's Neighborhood: San Francisco Bay Area features the stories of seven change-makers representing some of the communities most immediately affected by climate change, including Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color, who are too often excluded from dialogues about solutions. Each climate hero is building momentum in the Bay Area and beyond to stop climate change and create a healthier, more just future for all.

Voices of the San Francisco Bay Area

Join host and Project Drawdown director of storytelling and engagement Matt Scott on a journey to "pass the mic" to climate heroes whose stories often go unheard and elevate climate action:

Share These Stories

Help us amplify the work of these San Francisco Bay Area climate heroes by sharing their stories with others in your network and across social media. Please feel free to copy and paste the posts below:

Sample post 1:

Let’s hear it for climate heroes! Check out #DrawdownsNeighborhood: #SanFranciscoBayArea, presented by @ProjectDrawdown – a short doc series that tells the stories of 7 changemakers bringing climate solutions to their communities and beyond. www.drawdown.org/neighborhood

Sample post 2:

Join @ProjectDrawdown on a journey to #PassTheMic to climate heroes whose stories too often go unheard. We’re taking you to the #SanFranciscoBayArea to show you how 7 local changemakers are creating a healthier, more livable future for all. www.drawdown.org/neighborhood

Sample post 3:

Need inspiration for #climateaction in your own community? #DrawdownsNeighborhood: #SanFranciscoBayArea features 7 stories from unsung heroes who are using climate solutions to usher in a better, greener future. www.drawdown.org/neighborhood

Additional shareable assets include:

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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
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